Weekending

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday.

Friday was special because it was my last day of subbing for the school year. Our district gets out just before Memorial Day weekend but from what I hear, teachers are strongly discouraged from taking days off the last week of school so sub jobs are far and few in between. I have no sub jobs lined up for the week so I considered Friday to be IT for me for the school year.

I enjoyed a really lazy late afternoon after school and didn't even have to worry about dinner because Donnie picked up pizza in Centerville after he picked up a guitar from a music store in Centerville. Donnie and I started watching a new series on Netflix after our evening walk (I think we walked. We've been walking every night after dinner unless the weather is bad. Maybe it stormed Friday evening so we didn't?).

Saturday morning, I ran first thing and then got ready to run some errands. Abby had been wanting to go to Trader Joe's so she and I did that. We took the convertible and enjoyed the breeze on the hot Saturday. In the afternoon, we went to a festival in the nearby town of Miamisburg. When Donnie picked up his guitar on Friday, he talked to one of his friends who works there and who is in a band. The guy told Donnie that his band was playing at the festival. Donnie wanted to hear him play so we went to the festival. It was small town fun- unfortunately it rained and stormed some while we were there which delayed the performance. Abby had not a date but rather a dinner together with a young man scheduled at 6:00 pm so we couldn't stay long and had to miss some of the band's performance.

Always like going to Miamisburg...

The storm delayed the performance (everyone was told to seek shelter due to lightening) so we walked in the downtown area (the festival was in a park one block over from downtown) and found stores to go into. Loved this Christmas themed store and the wrapping paper on the windows.

No walk in Miamisburg (storm or no) is complete without stopping at Grandpa Joe's candy store.

Saw all sorts of goodies but settled on a favorite- GJ's chocolate covered raisins

We went into a flea market type store that sells all sorts of vintage items. Always fun to find things from back in the day... I had this exact same Pinocchio bank when I was a kid.

Back at the festival... have you even been if you haven't purchased something fried??

Finally got to see the band! They did 80's an 90's cover songs. They did a great job.

Sunday was our anniversary. Twenty three years ago we said, "I do" and thankfully we still do to this day ;). We went to church and enjoyed hearing a great sermon and then talked with some friends after the service. We were the last ones to leave the building (besides staff). I'm sure the staff was like, "Go out to lunch already together and leave!" (Of course no one said this but they were watching us and I do feel like they were waiting for us to leave!). We didn't have lunch with our friends because we had a few things we needed to do errand wise and because we had early dinner reservations.

A couple of Christmases ago, we received a gift card to a fine dining restaurant in Cincinnati called Jeff Ruby's. We hadn't used it yet and it was set to expire in 2023. I didn't want it to go to waste (obviously!) so we figured this was a good occasion to use it. Even calling weeks in advance, I couldn't get reservations at a normal dining hour so we had to eat early. That was fine with us as it still gave us time to relax at home and see the girls before the Monday grind for everyone (except for me!). We enjoyed our dinner out. The food and ambiance were good but I am not the fancy dinner type. I don't appreciate good food that much and I for sure don't want to pay for it! Our $150 gift card didn't cover our dinners but at least it made a decent dent... We enjoyed celebrating our anniversary at the restaurant but were happy to come home and spend the rest of the evening doing our mundane but fun evening activities together like taking a walk, hanging out with the girls, and watching TV. There's no one I'd rather live an ordinary life with than Donnie!  

Going to downtown Cincinnati- I'm still hayseed enough to be impressed by being near tall buildings!

Inside Jeff Ruby's- fancy!

We got a chuckle over trying to determine what the gelatinous like substance was on my salad (alas, perusing the menu description was of no assistance in this endeavor and trying it was a bit out of the question due to my lack of temerity). The goat cheese butter paired nicely with the crusty bread.

We didn't order dessert (the dessert shown above was given to us when we told the waiter it was our anniversary). We had purchased our favorite sugar cookies earlier and we had a couple of those when we returned home. We joked that year twenty three may not be the year of giving the gift of sugar but that's how we treated it ;).